


Virtue Is Not Left To Stand Alone

by JackOfNone



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Genre Twist, Biopunk, Gen, Homestuck Shipping Olympics, Kung Fu, Mentor/Sidekick, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Wuxia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-26
Updated: 2012-06-26
Packaged: 2017-11-08 14:25:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/444154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackOfNone/pseuds/JackOfNone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Sufferer and the Psiioniic face some highblood ruffians, in their own ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Virtue Is Not Left To Stand Alone

**Author's Note:**

> For the Homestuck Shipping Olympics Bonus Round 1 (genre fusions!), from the prompt "PsiionicSufferer, biopunk + wuxia". The biopunk ended up taking quite a backseat to the wuxia though.

The Signless sat calmly in the dirt with his legs crossed and his hands resting on his knees. His eyes, still yellow like a child’s, darted to and fro amongst the gang of highbloods that surrounded him, counting their number. One, two, four, six…ten, all told. 

In front of him, blocking his view of their leader, the Psiioniic shifted into a fighting stance. His boots made a soft scratch in the dust, and the Signless could feel the thrum of the Psiioniic’s warring internal energies crackling at the ready — blue and red, yin and yang, the outward expression of an inner struggle that fueled the Psiioniic’s powerful kung fu. He smiled fondly, as he always did when there was proof that his friend had learned his teachings well. 

The leader of the highbloods stepped forward, his muscles rippling unnaturally beneath his hide, and the pale thatching of surgical scars visible around the wrist and shoulder of his left arm. The highblood hefted a club larger than the Signless was tall and whirled it with ease. 

The Signless did not move.

“Twin Hells style, ARE YOU SHITTING ME?” the highblood cackled, looming over the Psiioniic, who held his ground. “You must be trying to get your ASS KICKED, FUCKER.” The highblood slammed the club into the ground barely inches from the Psiioniic’s feet, but he did not flinch. Not while he stood between their clubs and the Signless’s skull. 

“Can I help you, honored ones?” the Signless said. The lead highblood growled.

“Fucking right you can. Got a word that some LOWBLOOD SHITSTAIN had a thought-eater worm shoved in his ear at what you might call an ILLEGAL FUCKING BACK-ALLEY CLINIC. Meaning that theoretical lowblood motherfucker is throwing around some serious brain firepower now. Enough that we gotta RIP IT OUT OF HIS FUCKING SKULL.” 

The Signless saw the Psiioniic’s stance shift just a bit. With the highbloods growing more vicious by the day and most of them with a private army of Doctormentors to reshape their bodies at their whim, the Signless’s band had been forced to rely on the skills of illegal surgicarvers who pitied their cause. Artificial rainbow drinker blood for the Dolorosa, gravely wounded; real bone pouncebeast claws for his Disciple, little warrior that she was; and a though-worm, a beneficial vat-grown symbiote for the Psiioniic to level his endlessly fluctuating chi before it tore him apart from the inside. Only the Signless himself still lived in the body he spawned with. They’d been sure to cover their tracks, but the highbloods had found them anyway. The Signless hoped that nothing had happened to the poor surgicarver who had been so generous with her knife. 

“8oss,” said a smaller one behind the leader — blueblood by the look of her robe, the pupils of one of her eyes dilating and contracting strangely. “8oss, it’s gotta 8e him — he’s leaving an energy signal a mile wide!”

“WELL, NO SHIT,” the leader bellowed, and the little blueblood cringed as though in anticipation of a strike. “Waste of some pretty good shit, there — oughtta be wired right into one of the armada’s bioships, rather than FUCKING AROUND WITH BULGEBITING LOWBLOOD KUNG FU.” The highblood whirled his club again, and the Signless recognized the sweeping, powerful strokes of what the Underground called Terminal Whimsy style, but the Subjugglators who originated it referred to as “a thorough motherfucking beatdown.” 

The ringleader came at the Psiioniic with a wild swing, testing the water; the Psiioniic launched himself into the air nimbly. The highblood’s club connected with the ground where the Psiioniic used to be, hard enough to crack the earth. The shockwave from his mighty blow reached the Signless, rustling his hair. 

Still, the Signless did not move. 

The highblood leapt to follow the Psiioniic into the air, and they clashed together in the sky. The highblood’s arm rippled, his enhanced muscles bringing his club around for another impossibly strong swing — the Signless recognized the first of the Subjugglator’s “Twelve Lolarious Catastrophes”…powerful kung fu indeed, but he trusted his student. The Psiioniic’s eyes flashed, red and blue, as he parried the blow with his bare hands. 

“You’re 2o quiick to diismii22 my fiightiing art2,” the Psiioniic said. “Clearly you’ve never 2een Twiin Hell2 2tyle practiiced wiithout one of your fuckiing 2lave ciircuiit2 holdiing iit back.” The force of the Psiioniic’s release of chi was deafening; he seized the highblood’s arm with a grip like iron, spun him around like a top, and slammed him into the ground. 

And the Signless did not move. 

When the dust cleared and their leader did not rise from beneath the crouched form of the Psiioniic, the highblood rabble stood gaping for a mere moment before charging. The Psiioniic grinned. 

“Come and get iit,” he hissed, and so they did. All at once they surrounded him, seeking to overwhelm him with numbers, but the Psiioniic fought like two — no, five — no, the Psiioniic was a legion unto himself, everywhere at once. With a single stroke he parried four spear-wielding indigo-bloods; he swept a blueblood’s legs out from under him with his right foot before whirling around to face a purpleblood who crumpled like paper as the Psiioniic turned the force of his twinned chi upon him from a distance. 

The Signless counted the highbloods who still stood as the Psiioniic fought. Ten, six, four, two, and finally one — the little bluebood who had spoken before, facing the Psiioniic with awe in her altered eyes.

The Psiioniic shifted his battle stance, ready to spring, and the Signless moved then. 

“Halt,” he said. 

“2iifu?” the Psiioniic said, glancing backwards, and in that moment of distraction the blueblood’s arm shot forward. A dart, small and thin like a needle, burst from an orifice in her palm to arc directly towards the Signless’s face. 

The Signless’s hand moved, quick as lightning, to intercept the needle. It jabbed into his palm just to the right of his thumb and stood there, quivering. 

The Psiioniic seized the blueblood by the collar, and she held up her hands. 

“I’m not a warrior,” she said, holding up her hands, the dart-orifice sealed again. “Kill me, low8lood, and let me die here with my disgr8ce. I can’t fight you.” 

“Then do not fight,” the Signless said, and plucked the needle from his hand. A thin line of bright red blood oozed from the wound, sliding down his wrist. He held out his hand, stained with the mutant blood that he had always refused to have corrected, and the blueblood stared in mixed wonder and disgust. 

“I don’t underst8nd,” she said. “Why would you not k8ll me?” 

“So that you may know mercy,” the Signless said. He laid his hand on her shoulder, his blood darkening the fabric of her robe, and she mouthed the word as though she had never heard it before. “Go, remember what you have seen but tell no one, and pity high and low alike.” 

The blueblood wavered, kneeled, and left without a word. 

The Psiioniic brushed some dirt off of his knees and cracked his knuckles. “2top 2caring me liike that, fucka22,” he said, and the Signless smiled gently. 

“I am your sifu, Psii,” he said. “Show a little respect!” 

“All riight. 2top scariing me liike that, _2iifu Fucka22_ ,” the Psiioniic said, laughing as he bowed.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this was mostly an excuse to get to the phrase "Sifu Fuckass".


End file.
